In 2006 John McCain and 19 other Senators (all Republicans) wrote a letter asking for the Senate to discuss Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s practices.  Observing their combined $1.5 TRILLION in combined debts:

With the fiscal challenges facing us today (deficits, entitlments, pensions and flood insurance), Congres must ask itself who would actually pay this debt if Fannie or Freddie could not?

Well I guess we now know the answer to that question.

Even Kos is admitting Democrat Glenn Nye has a long road ahead of him in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District…especially when THEIR poll shows him down by 14 points. Ouch.

Garren Shipley has the story at NoVA Daily about Senate candidate Democrat Mark Warner admitting that he called members of the NRA and those that home school a threat to America. Warner says that he has learned a lot over the course of 14 years.

In what might be one of the first of what we hope will be many stops for the former president in the commonwealth (given that his surrogate-in-chief, Terry McAuliffe, might be running for the Democratic nod for governor), former president Bill Clinton paid a visit today.

In his honor, RPV and Delegate Jeff Frederick, party chair, laid out the welcome mat:

“Bill Clinton called Barack Obama’s past campaign statements a ‘fairy tale’, but now it looks like Bill Clinton will have to spread some fairy dust of his own to fulfill his political duty to campaign for the Obama-Biden ticket,” said Delegate Jeffrey M. Frederick, Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia.

“Clinton is a professional campaigner and will no doubt toe the company line and praise Barack Obama today. But when we listen to Clinton we should remember that when speaking honestly without pressure from either side, Clinton offered glowing reviews of Senator McCain, and his compliments of Obama had all the enthusiasm of a child who’s forced to give a kiss to an aunt with a big wart on her nose.”

Frederick was referencing stinging remarks Clinton made about Obama during the Democrat primary season as well as an interview Clinton gave ABC News September 18th when the former president said “I’ve never concealed my admiration and affection for Sen. McCain. I think he’s a great man.” Clinton has offered no such praise of Obama.

Among Clinton’s criticisms of Obama:

• Calling Obama’s statements on the Iraq War “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen”;
• Equating electing a person of Obama’s non-experience to a “roll of the dice”;
• Complaining that Obama was overly negative and did a “hit job” on him;
• Offering a flawed plan on health care;
• Employing the race card;
• Making remarks about Americans being “bitter”;
• Not telling the truth on claims Obama campaign is without special-interest money.

“Bill Clinton was right when he said that Obama knows how to spread fairy tales,” said Frederick. “if this election was about the facts and the merits of the candidates, John McCain would coast to victory, maybe even with Bill Clinton’s support.”

Heh.

To be clear up front… I would never suggest that McCain/Palin supporters in general are haters of any kind. In fact, some of my favorite people are contributors to this blog (Jim, Shaun, Jason- the jury’s still out on Brian the Squeaky Wheel), which is decidedly pro-McCain/Palin. I just thought this was an interesting op-ed from Frank Schaeffer, whether you love him or hate him.

And I know that many, if not most, of the regulars who check this blog would readily denounce such hate. That’s the optimist in me…

McCain’s attacks fuel dangerous hatred
By Frank Schaeffer
October 10, 2008

John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as “not one of us,” I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.

As more and more questions pop up concerning ACORN and its practicies, some Barack Obama supporters are growing increasingly concerned on the issue:

• This could be a game changer for me.
• I must confess that this episode represents the first time my faith in Barack has been tested.
• If Obama has paid them to register voters and if ACORN has been shown to do illegal things this could blow up in the campaigns face.

And more.  These are just from Barack Obama’s own social network.  How many more are there out there waivering as this issue grows?  Especially since this hits right at his “community organizer” days, time he spent working for ACORN.  If people don’t trust ACORN, what are they to think of Obama?

See also: Wizbang - Obama and ACORN, Fort Wayne News - ACORNS all over the place

UPDATE: Even “ACORN couldn’t drum up enough votes” for Notre Dame:

A wide ranging collection of individuals has put together a petition to Senators McCain and Obama requesting a change to the format of the final debate. The group is calling itself the Open Debate Coalition. Their requests including allowing for more moderator discretion in followups and full footage release. Also, interestingly enough, is a request to come up with a better alternative to the current Commission on Presidential Debates to handle future debates. The membership is pretty diverse, as a couple of the individuals below demonstrate.

Lawrence Lessig; Professor, Stanford Law School, Founder, Center for Internet and Society

Eli Pariser; Executive Director, MoveOn.org Political Action

Mike Krempasky; Founder, RedState.com

Markos Moulitsas; Founder, DailyKos.com

Roger L. Simon, CEO, Pajamas Media

As most of you know, the report of the Alaskan special investigator on TrooperGate was released yesterday. And although it concluded that Palin acted within her “constitutional and statutory authority” in firing her safety commissioner Walt Monegan, it also stated that her actions in the pursuit of having her ex brother-in-law fired were in violation of Alaskan law. Politico (among many other places) has the story.

Looks like i was mistaken, she may be the right person to carry on the legacy of Dick Cheney after all.

McCain and his campaign have gone on overdrive in the last couple days, pulling out all the stops on a scorched earth campaign, and doing their best to convince the public that Obama is some sort of terrorist by association. Fortunately the public doesn’t seem to be buying it. From an Oct 8th poll (Fox News no less):

43. There has been some discussion of Barack Obama’s relationship with the
former radical activist William Ayers. Because Ayers is linked to plots to bomb
the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol in the 1970s, and because Ayres recently said
he wished he had done more, some people say Obama’s association with Ayers calls
into question his judgment. Does Obama’s connection with Ayers make you less
likely to vote for him for president or does it not really make a difference to
your vote?

            Less likely  No difference  (More likely)  (Don't know)
8-9 Oct 08      32%         61             2             5
Democrats        8%         83             2             7
Republicans     62%         33             2             3
Independents    29%         64             3             4

The latest poll results from Military Times are now available; and, not surprisingly, McCain polls very well, eclipsing Obama by a large margin: 68-23%.

Enlisted personnel support McCain 67-24%; Officers support McCain 70-22%. Obama enjoys a 79-12% lead among African-Americans, but McCain holds a 63-27% lead among Latinos and Hispanics.

The Navy supports McCain 69-24% and the 18-34 age group supports McCain 65-27%.

By a wide margin, across all ranks, genders, and generally race, McCain is the military’s preference to be their next Commander-in-Chief.

Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal writes a brilliant “No We Can’t” article on Obama: Obama’s Magic.

Basically, she explains Obama’s policies, in a light and entertaining way, while exposing the difficulty, if not outright economic voodoo, that it will take at implementing them.

90-second campaign commercial by McCain on Obama’s ACORN association:

The “Virginia Politics On-Demand” crew played host to former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, on tonight’s podcast.

This past week, Gov. Gilmore has called on his opponent, former Virginia governor Mark Warner, to participate in one additional televised debate due to Warner’s support for the bailout bill. Gilmore has also called into question Warner’s comments that he made regarding the NRA, home schooling, and people of faith. Warner called them a “threat to America.”

Gilmore joined Danae Jones, Shaun Kenney, and Jim Hoeft for about 35 minutes, and discussed a myriad of issues ranging from gun control to pro-life issues; the financial bailout to tax rates; energy costs to his views on “bi-partisanship”.

The governor might be a little down in the polls, but he came out swinging in this lively discussion.

 

 VPOD: Gov. Jim Gilmore. Oct 9, 2008.: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (35)

To listen to any of the previous podcasts, click here.
To automatically download and sync VPOD with your MP3 player, use this feed.

If you are a prayin’ kind of person, then may I recommend you say a prayer for your registrar? They are by and large terrific people who love America, love democracy, and want more than anything to have a clean and smoothly-run election. So you have to ask why the ACLU is apparently trying to make the registrars’ jobs harder. Check out this link-rich post for shenanigans in Virginia. See also this from Virtucon. As always, the Anchoress is good. She has updates near the end of the site for voter fraud / ACORN nonsense, including Instapundit’s note that

“If the Baptists did what ACORN is doing…the press would be all over it, 24/7.”

Does anyone think the registrars are being given similar amounts of grief by groups favoring Republicans? Didn’t think so.

Obama must answer this:

“Why in the world was Barack Obama still communicating on the phone or via email with Bill Ayers up until 2005 — when in 2001 Ayers gave widely publicized interviews claiming he had no regrets about the bombing, indeed regretted that he had not done enough, and did not necessarily have any remorse either about his Weathermen career?”

(From Victor Davis Hanson). This is not a “distraction.” This is not about something from Sen. Obama’s childhood. This was going on only three years ago. Please read the whole thing.

What might this mean? When a man keeps company with men like that, it means so many things on so many fronts. Here’s one front, one Obama likes to talk about: Afghanistan.

“The real position of these latter-day traitors is to stop the War on Terror completely, humiliate the United States, and lull the country back into a September 10th state of mind. Neither Obama or anyone else in his sniveling cohort give a tinker’s damn about Afghanistan. What they do know is that if they can get the War in Iraq shut down to “send more desperately needed resources” to Afghanistan, then shutting down and surrendering in Afghanistan will be child’s play.”

Think that’s too strong? Again, read the whole thing (from American Digest).

And why if this is so serious, aren’t you hearing more about it? Many reasons. Here are some, from Roger L. Simon.

You will probably watch the evening news today, for 1/2 hour at least. Why not spend 10 minutes reading the articles I have linked? There’s much more out there. Just start with these and ask if you really want Sen. Obama to be President of the United States. He would be making decisions that will influence our entire world, and he will be making them from a mind formed, informed, and conditioned by long-time associations with Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, et al.

You may have your questions about John McCain, but they are nothing like the kinds of questions that are out there, UNANSWERED, about Barack Obama.

(Cross-posted from blog.conservativa.com).